


A Perfect Eleven

by facade



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, For You With Love, I'm Still Not Sure What This Categorizes As, M/M, Mild Angst, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-03
Updated: 2014-07-03
Packaged: 2018-02-07 08:59:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1893102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/facade/pseuds/facade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>They met up for lunch or dinner any and every time they were near one another, exchanged the latest gossip about their idols and laughed at the photos Gareth had secretly taken of Karim's flamboyant underwear while talking about the pressure of playing at a massive club in the current football capital of the world. It was nice and relieving to talk to someone who was going through the same thing as him - being new to Spain, trying to step out of and outshine the shadow cast by a number ten.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Perfect Eleven

**Author's Note:**

  * For [firetruckyeah](https://archiveofourown.org/users/firetruckyeah/gifts).



He knew that the transition phase, that this one in particular, would be difficult but he had no idea that it’d be this hard, that it would take this long. The first time he had heard the white noise of the masses indistinctly cheering for him after something he had done, the first time he had heard them chanting his name after he had tucked the ball into the back of the net for the first time at the Camp Nou, he thought that it was over, he thought that the phase had ended. He had opened up the scoring in his first ever Clasico, had scored against the mighty Los Blancos the very first time he had shared the pitch with the white shirts... How quickly that day fell to the wayside, how quickly that day became a memory and began to collect dust, how quickly the Spaniard's had moved on from that moment and into the next. As the season progressed, and as his hopes for lifting silverware with Barcelona in his first year faded to a little more than wishful thinking, he realized that he was still in over his head, that he was still desperately searching for his place within the ranks of the internationally hailed FC Barcelona. He tried to shake the feeling but it clung to him for weeks on end, plagued his mind no matter how many distractions were thrown his way. 

Neymar shook his head in exasperation and willed away his thoughts; they had completely deprived him of sleep the night before and he wasn't sure of how he was supposed to make it through the day without either drifting off or being driven completely mad by the content of his wild theories. He felt his stomach rumble and figured that it was as good of a sign as any that it was time for him to get out of bed. He carelessly threw on some loose fitted sweat pants and a t-shirt, made his way out of his bedroom and into his kitchen, and came to an abrupt stop as he caught sight of somebody sitting at his bar, eating his cereal... As the man looked up at him with round blue eyes, appearing as a child who had just been caught red handed with his hand in the cookie jar, he couldn't do anything to suppress the smile that was forming on his face. "What the hell are you doing here?" He asked as he jogged over to the other man and wrapped his arms around his neck, lightly squeezing him just before he pulled away to get a better look at the face of the other: a light blush had formed on the high lines of his cheekbones and the sudden pink hue accentuated the freckles that were littered across his face. "Why aren't you back in Madrid?"

Gareth finished chewing the bits of cereal that lingered in his mouth and shook his head dismissively. "What am I supposed to do in Madrid?" He asked as he found the younger man's light brown eyes and wrapped his hand around his wrist, tugging on the wrist until its owner compliantly fell onto the bar stool just beside him. It hadn't always been like this, it was quite the opposite really when they had first met; he had thought that the Brasilian was pretentious (he still did but he had eventually stopped calling him the word in the midst of some of their more heated arguments) and had been convinced that Neymar had too much to prove in Europe to be making some of the claims that he had made when he first arrived in Spain. It had soon dawned on him though that Neymar was simply a younger version of his idol - a younger version of the man who had made it no secret that he had come to Spain to be the best, to beat the best, a younger version of the man who did everything within his power to light the left wing, the right wing (every part of the third of the pitch that was not their own) on fire using his raw speed - he had the same attitude, the same confidence, a similar speed, the same native language. "The champagne bottles have been emptied, the trophy has been presented, Madrid has been covered with white, the season is over... There won't be anything to anchor me in Madrid until the start of the preseason warm-ups," he sighed as he thought about the long, empty summer ahead of him. 

"You don't have to lie, Gareth," Neymar yawned out as he allowed his head to gently fall against the broad shoulders of the Welshman, "you came to see me before I left for Brasil. No one hops on a plane for an hour simply because they're bored." It was weird the first time they had met up in Madrid; Neymar was certain he had been drunk when he had texted Gareth for the first time, he didn't even know why or how he had Gareth's name on his contact list, but after that text was sent and received, everything changed. _"From eleven to eleven, you're making me look bad, amigo."_ It was stupid but it had meant something to both of them, still did... They met up for lunch or dinner any and every time they were near one another, exchanged the latest gossip about their idols and laughed at the photos Gareth had secretly taken of Karim's flamboyant underwear while talking about the pressure of playing at a massive club in the current football capital of the world. It was nice and relieving to talk to someone who was going through the same thing as him - being new to Spain, trying to step out of and outshine the shadow cast by a number ten. The first time he had leaned forward to kiss him, the first time he brushed the lips of the merengue with his own, he had been just as surprised as the other man. They had been talking about the relentless nature of the press, the hot and cold, hot and cold nature of the fans, and the pressure, the weight that their respective crests had carried with them... The usual things he would talk about with Gareth, the things he would _only_ talk about with Gareth. He had never connected to anyone in that manner and he could only guess, as he looked back on that day, that he simply wanted extend that connection. Neymar smiled as he suddenly felt Gareth's lips against his neck and sighed appreciatively at the contact. "You should come to bed with me," Neymar whispered as if the empty house would somehow report everything he told the Madridista back to the press, "maybe it'll help me sleep."  

"You haven't been sleeping?" Gareth asked, voice filled with concern as he searched for the light brown eyes of the Brasilian. He stood anyway, as if the answer to the question mattered but as if Neymar's request took a slight priority over it and offered the wiry, younger man a hand. He followed Neymar to the back of the house and took in the familiar settings of the Barca number eleven's bedroom, sighing soflty as he looked over to the bed to find Neymar already nuzzling himself beneath the sheets. He made his way over to the bed and plopped down on the edge of it as he kicked off his shoes and socks and tossed them just beside the end table. He felt Neymar tugging on the hem of his shirt so he threw that somewhere on the floor as well just before he fell back into the soft clutches of Neymar's bed sheets. As ne snuggled his way beneath the comforter, he reached over and pulled the smaller man against him, smiling as Neymar turned to rest of his abdomen against his own and asked the long haired boy why he hadn't been sleeping as of late. "Is it insomnia or...?"

Neymar shook his head and released a heavy exhale as the thoughts surfaced again. "I think it's just a phase but I can't stop thinking about last season, you know? Every time I look in the mirror I see every goal that I missed, every goal that should have gone in soaring over the fucking crossbar..." His words were light because he knew it wasn't an issue he'd have to force, he knew Gareth would understand - Gareth always understood him, better than anyone else he knew. "Goals that would have given us the points we needed to finish the season with something, you know... anything." He closed his eyes as he felt the strong hands of the Welshman rubbing circles around his shoulder blades and allowed his muscles to relax under the soothing pressure; Gareth had a way of making him feel so small and pliable with little more than a touch, made him feel something no one else could make him feel since the day he had started living large. It was hard to feel small when his face was frequented on the covers of magazines and tabloids alike, when his name was on the back of a jersey being worn by every other person, when there seemed to be flashing lights everywhere he looked, when all of his problems proved trivial and solvable with a splash of cash... there was something relaxing, something he loved about feeling small in the broad arms of this man. "It's not that I blame myself for our horrible season," (horrible by the standards of the blaugrana, that is), "but I just feel that if I had just tried a little bit harder, if I had made more space for myself then maybe that could've been us lifting the Champion's League trophy this year." He could feel Gareth laughing beneath him and smiled as he reached over to playfully pinch the side of the other. "Maybe not the Champion's Leauge trophy then," he conceded as he remembered Atleti's form that past season, "but maybe the Copa del Rey trophy?"     

"True," Gareth agreed as he recalled how close that game was, how close Madrid came to extra time before he outran Bartra on the left wing - the poor guy - and slammed the ball into the back of the net for their winner, "it wasn't Madrid's best game." He chuckled as he felt Neymar pinch his side again and caught his hand within his own on the withdraw. "You're not what's wrong, though. You need to know that. You did all you could do with what you were given," the Welshman concluded as Neymar craned his neck to find his eyes and greeted him with furrowed brows and a look of disbelief. "Don't look at me like that, it's true. Barcelona needs to make room for you; they're not giving you enough space to work with and it shouldn't be up to you to find it as they close them down with that tic-tac-toe bullshit." He laughed at himself, he knew what it was called but Neymar made it a point to mock the way he said 'tiki-taka, and smiled as he realized how much he was starting to sound like his mentor. "Last season was Barcelona's problem, not yours," he sighed as he ran a few of his fingers through Neymar's lengthy hair, as his thumb traced the strong thigh of the younger man that had been wedged between his own. "You have to be critical of the whole eleven - Pique had a shit season, Valdes was out for a lot of it, Lionel wasn't top notch - not just the one on your back. I mean, it's a given that Madrid has the perfect eleven..."

"You sound so corny," Neymar chuckled as he reached up and playfully popped the Madrid number eleven on the cheek, "are you talking about the starting eleven or yourself?" His thoughts fell to the wayside as blue eyes found him; he hated how easily Gareth could pull him from his thoughts, how Gareth seemed to keep him from drowning within them with ease, how insignificant the events of the past seemed when he could see and touch what he knew was his future, who he knew was his future. He hated how easy he made forgetting your worries seemed, hated that his plague of thought seemed to be cured by the mere presence of this man. He hated that with one look he was made to forget about what they were talking about and why they were talking about it, knew only that he wanted to be caught in those eyes for the rest of his life... That the only thing that mattered was that this person, this person staring at him so intently, became a permanent fixture within his life.

"The fact that you even considered that I was referring to myself speaks measures," Gareth teased as he pulled Neymar further up into the bed and took the younger man's bottom lip in between his own. He felt the other forward respond immediately, heard him softly moan as he slowly began to work his lips against those of the other. "I must truly be perfection," Gareth chuckled out breathily as he pulled away from the younger man to change the angle of the kiss. 

Neymar smiled against the Welshman's lips as he refound them among their mixture of hot breath; all of his worries and fears forgotten, left further and further behind him with each passing moment he spent in the company of the Madridista. _Yeah_ , he thought as hands grew curious and as the kiss intensified, _you must be._


End file.
